


A Letter to Burn

by trufflemores



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: 3.23, Angst, F/M, Finish Line, Gen, Introspection, Meta, Romance, reaction fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 09:09:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12650523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trufflemores/pseuds/trufflemores
Summary: 3.23.  Barry had more to say before going into the Speed Force, so he wrote it down.





	A Letter to Burn

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually my reaction fic to 4.02 "Mixed Signals." It was inspired by Iris' moment of honesty -- "How could you leave me?" -- and the lack of Barry POV we've had on the whole Speed Force affair. Fair warning, it's pretty heavy. Mentions of canonical character death. Deals with some of the morbidities of Barry's career.
> 
> If you care to read the letter he burned, proceed, and enjoy.

_Dear Iris:_

_It didn't hurt._

_Physically, I mean.  No one wants to hear their loved one died in agony._

_So, rest assured: it didn't hurt._

_But I looked at you, Iris, and I knew this was going to bleed, for months, for years._ _I had to hope that someday it would cease.  I had to, or I never could have walked away from you.  I had to believe that you would find a way to go on, even when it hurt so much you couldn't breathe._

_Because nothing, and no one, can stop you.  Not even this terrible, titanic thing we call loss._

_I know loss too well._

_It wasn't always self-inflicted.  I can still see the midnight blue top hat that the Reaper wore to my mother's funeral on that cold autumn day, sixteen years ago.  The Reaper –- the officiant –- was debonair, and civil, and tried to make the consumptive fire burn quieter.  He apologized to me but not to my face.  He stood at a podium and talked about a person he didn't know, in front of an audience that did not include my father, and tried to make it seem like I didn't want to come running back, aching for a shovel, anything to get her out of that box._

_I wish I could say that Mom was the last person I ever found under a white sheet.  I didn't plan on becoming a forensic scientist.  Not at first.  I liked fission, fusion, clean, nuclear, emotionless science.  But within a month of the murder I realized that nobody -- not the cops, not the shrinks -- was going to believe me.  I was all she had._ _And I couldn't let it go.  I knew the truth._ _Every day my dad stayed in prison was a reminder that I had to prove it or he was going to die in there.  I_ _f no one else was going to look for answers –- if they were going to let the case run cold –- then I had to make the case myself._

_I got what I needed and found a vocation in it.  The dead became part of my day job, just another grim aspect of my chosen profession.  I could accept the morbid into my life, accept a certain pervasive numbness to grief, in order to cope with this heavy back-breaking thing we call Death._

_Death is part of my job.  Death punches in every morning and shares a cup of coffee with us; Death is coming for us, gunning for us.  Death is sitting in a frame labelled "Hero, and Friend,"  with the image of an officer who will never walk through those doors again._

_I don't know when I stopped having nightmares about the Reaper in a top hat.  I can't say when I stopped seeing him at night, reappearing to tell me that you or Joe or Dad, hell, anyone, had died.  I don't know why I was drawn into the darkness that I feared, pulled into the places I couldn't inhabit in my own life.  But this is who I've become._

_You would think I would be more immune to seeing people die, but I'm not.  I can't unsee their expressions when they realize that they're not going to make it.  I can't help but feel responsible for it –- like if I hadn't blinked, the threat would have passed by, or if I had just run a little faster, I could have beaten the cold blast arcing for that security guard._

_I ran almost a thousand miles on the treadmill that night.  I couldn't stop seeing his helpless terror before it ended._

_Emotionally, I don't think I ever stopped running.  Running faster and faster, desperate to outrun the inevitable, to delay it for as long as I could, to save as many people as my arms could carry.  I ran, from dusk until dawn, afraid that if I slept someone would suffer._

_You started to notice that I wasn't sleeping well.  Soon I was sick, and tired.  Coming up with excuses for you became painful._

_But one thing remained clear: I couldn't stop running.  I couldn't stop running, Iris.  I tried to put it to bed at night and awoke with a scream halfway out of my chest, begging for another tragedy not to happen.  I spent hours at work in a dazed cold sweat trying to focus on the papers and not on the people I needed to be out saving._

_After some tipping point, I bought myself a long weekend: Singh took one look at me and told me to go home, and I left, but I wouldn't be home for another eight hours._

_I don't know when to punch out.  I don't know how to stop.  I don't know if I can –- if this great and terrible gift will ever allow me to slow down –- but I do know that no matter how badly I feel, I have to try to save them._

_Or else the inevitable will take everyone from me._

_When we lost Eddie._

_When we lost Eddie, I wasn't sure I could grieve for him.  It felt too close, like the bullet was lodged in my chest, right beside my heart.  If I took one deep breath, then it would puncture, and I would bleed out.  Rather than seeking help, I held my breath for three months.  I tried not to think about the bullet.  I tried to keep all of you away from the gun.  It didn't work._

_Ronnie, I didn't know well –- but I knew enough to let Caitlin cry for him, for both of us.  But w_ _hen Al Rothstein died, I didn't cry._

_I don't know why I stopped crying for them.  When the nightly Reaper visits came to mean "I'm here to help ease the pain" rather than "I'm here to hurt you."  I woke up and felt guilty. How could I be relieved that people were dead?  It wasn't how justice worked.  None of it was how justice worked._

_And then –-_

_Then Dad died._

_…_ _I still can't talk about Dad._

_I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry._

_I'm never going to be able to say 'sorry' enough for what I did after that night._

_I owe apologies to Cisco and Dante and the entire Ramon family.  I owe them to John Diggle and Lyla Michaels and their daughter Sara.  I owe them to Rip Hunter and the countless soldiers who are fighting in a war that I started.  I owe them to every person who didn't survive the second time I let history play out._

_I still don't know how it all works.  At this point, I don't know if I want to._ _Ignorance is bliss, and I know more than I ever wanted to._

_Then one day I met the real Reaper, and he stood eight feet tall in a black-and-blue suit and plunged a sword through your chest._

_I don't know how many times I had that nightmare.  I lost count.  I didn't want to sleep at all, only drifted off when I couldn't stay awake, forcing myself out of bed as early as I could to get away from those dark, unconscious tidings.  When Savitar finally showed himself, I wish I could say that I didn't recognize him, that I would never be that person, but I could already see what two years with the Speed Force had done to me._

_Imagine what two thousand could do._

_Then the Speed Force called me home._

_Like I said: it didn't hurt.  Physically._

_Emotionally?_

_They haven't invented a strong enough word to describe how badly I wanted to wrap you in my arms and never let go.  I know loss too well, and I wish you never had to._

_But you are strong.  You can survive this._

_If I never come home, you have to know this -– I loved you.  I love you._

_I will always love you, Iris._

_I hope you never find this. If you don't, it means one thing –-_

_This story doesn't end here.  It doesn't end in tragedy.  It doesn't end with me leaving this vague promise to return that I may not be able to keep, and you in your enduring grief._

_I wish you didn't have to endure anything.  I wish your life was as beautiful as you are.  I wish for a lot of things._

_But above all else, I wish for your happiness._

_Yours, forever:_

_Barry_


End file.
